Storytelling with Photographs - Alice in Wonderland themed photoshoot with Brittney

My apologies for not having updated this blog in a while.  Work has been keeping me preoccupied and though I have continued doing model photoshoots, I've been falling behind on doing the BTS posts.

I have been keeping notes on each shoot to help me remember details when I finally get around to doing the BTS write-ups, so the posts will eventually get caught up (I hope).  It's just difficult to get back into writing when you haven't done it in a while.

To help me get back into the swing of things, I decided to start with something simple:

For a while now I had been wanting to experiment with photographic storytelling - creating a series of images that put together would tell an entire story. So when model Brittney Baker (one of my favorite models to work with in Maui) contacted me about doing an Alice in Wonderland styled photoshoot I quickly agreed.  After a few days of prep work, we headed up to Olinda to the Waihou Spring Trail one morning for the shoot.

To prep for this shoot, I put together a simple storyline to use as a shooting guide for the different photos that we would need to take to convey the story:

Alice wanders around a forest.  It seems normal at first, but she starts to see things that may or may not be illusions.  She eventually finds a large rabbit hole and peers into it but cannot see where it leads.  She ponders for a moment, then decides to take a leap of faith.

Since we were there early in the morning, the light coming through the trees looked amazing, so we mainly worked with the existing light.  Whenever we needed some fill light, we used a California Sunbounce Pro Silver/White reflector which we had mounted on a C-Stand.

In a couple of instances, we also used the Cheetahstand CL360 as a backlight.

Assembly of the slideshow was done in Final Cut Pro X, using various transitions and some subtle movements of the photos to imply the action of walking through the forest. Music was licensed through SongFreedom.com.

Wandering Alice from MauiPhoto on Vimeo.

Again my apologies for the lack of updates, and the relative brevity of this post.  Lighting-wise there wasn't much to write up about, as it was mostly done with natural light. In a lot of the shots, we didn't even need to use the reflector as the existing light was already awesome.  Plus when you have a fantastic model such as Brittney, you could probably light her with a $2 flashlight and she would look awesome.

Working on more BTS posts.  Stay Tuned....

Photoshoot with Anya - my first Russian model

One of the things I enjoy most about photographing models is meeting people from all over the world so when the opportunity came along to work with Russian model Anya who contacted me via Model Mayhem, I did not hesitate.

We both had tight schedules during the time she was visiting Maui, so we had very little time to arrange a shoot together.  Luckily, we were able to pull off two photoshoots that incorporated three separate locations.

We started early in the morning in Kapalua, in a jungle setting.  Had to put up with a lot of mosquitos, but it was so worth it beacuse the morning light coming through the trees was amazing.

For lighting we used a Cheetahstand CL360 in a small white shoot thru umbrella as our main light with the sun as her backlight.

On a couple of poses we had some hard sunlight coming through the trees and falling on Anya so we propped up a Lastolite Trigrip Diffuser Panel to keep that off of her as needed.

Anya is definitely one of the bravest models I've met, lying down in the middle of the jungle like that without caring about the hundreds of spiders, centipedes, or the many other creepy crawlies that were probably underneath all that.  Just thinking about all that gives me the heebie-jeebies!

We then rushed to our second location in Kapalua which was at Dragon's Teeth.  I've shot on the north side of this spot before with a few other models, but because of the position of the sun around the time we got there, Anya and I went to the opposite side of the rocks to find some shaded areas to work with.

Anya changed into her Bohemian look for this set.

Because this area is very windy, any light modifiers such as a softbox or umbrella would have immediately ended up in the ocean.  The extremely rocky terrain also made it difficult to find a spot near the model to position the lights close to her and still be out of the frame.  We ended up shooting the light from a fair distance - two Cheetahstand CL-360s provided just a touch of light.

The next day was a short photoshoot at Makena Cove in the morning. Used the Cheetahstand CL-360 in a Cheetahstand QSB silver beauty dish.

On this day it was slightly over cast, so we didn't have to fight the sun too much.  The flash was used just to add a bit of fill as needed.

Really enjoyed working with Anya on this series of images.  My only regret was that I forgot to have her teach me how to swear in Russian. ;-)

First Las Vegas Photoshoot with Natasha Tyler

My apologies to those of you who actually take the time to read this blog.  I've been busy with other commitments and have not been able to keep up with the BTS postings of our shoots.  Have a bunch of them that I'm working on and I will get them up online as time permits.

Went to the NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) trade show a while back and since both the Star Trek Experience is no longer there and I'm not into drinking or gambling, I had some free time to schedule a couple of photoshoots and make some new contacts in Las Vegas.  The first of our two shoots was with Natasha, a model I met through Model Mayhem.

For this shoot we were working out of a TINY hotel room, so it was a challenge to try to find angles that would look good. Decided to use mostly prime lenses and shoot wide open to throw the background out of focus as much as possible. This entire shoot was done with the Sony a6000 with 3 lenses - the 35mm f1.8 OSS, 50mm f1.8 OSS and the PZ18-105mm F4 G OSS lens.

Our first set was a simple headshot next to a window. We improvised a reflector by holding up a white shoot thru umbrella right next to the model's face just out of the right side of the camera frame.

Not only was the room tiny, the furnishings were so old that they still had an old tube style television instead of a newer flat screen LCD or LED.  In this shot of Natasha in a black evening dress we hid that by carefully positioning the camera angle so that we could hide it behind her.

The lighting for this shoot was mostly natural window light mixed with a Cheetahstand (Godox) CL360 with a white mushroom adapter firing into the ceiling next to the camera position.

A Cheetahstand (Godox)V850 in a Westcott Apollo Strip was used to add edge lighting to the model.

The same lighting setup was used in this shot of Natasha reclining on the bed in her second evening dress.

Natasha was as great model to work with.  Was even up for having some fun with a "geek glamour" type shot. Again we used the camera position to hide unwanted elements in the background.  Sometimes it came down to where if either she or the camera moved even an inch to either side, we'd see stuff in the background.  Lots of trial and error on this shoot.

To close this shoot, Natasha changed into a white mens shirt and we had her recline on the bed for a few implied shots.  Would have liked to have gotten a higher vantage point for the camera, but the low ceiling didn't give us enough clearance to frame her properly.

All in all it was a lot of fun for my first official photoshoot in Las Vegas. A big Mahalo to Natasha for being such a great subject to photograph!

Finding The Light - Christmas Day Photoshoot with Kayo in Tokyo

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in photography came from Master Photographer Irvin Yamada, who told me to "learn to see the light".  If you look carefully, you can find amazing natural light for your subjects.  Even in the middle of a crowded city like Tokyo.

Recently I had the good fortune of working again with one of my favorite models in Japan - the always amazing Kayo. I first met Kayo-san years ago through Model Mayhem and every time we collaborate on a shoot, it's always a lot of fun.  Though this was sort of a last minute impromptu shoot, we were able to create some great images in a short amount of time with very minimal gear.

The nice thing about shooting in Tokyo in December when the sun is low in the sky is that there are lots of pools of reflected light coming from the low sunlight bouncing off of the many windows and glass walls of the buildings around you.  By simply walking around, you can find lots of places where you can get both a front light and back light. Then all you need to do is put your subject in that spot.

These were all shot in a park next to our hotel - no need for a reflector or even fill flash. Pretty much everything was shot with the sun behind the model and the reflection from a nearby window filling in the front.

Everything was shot on a Sony a7ii with either the 55mm f1.8 Zeiss lens or the Sony 70-200 f4 G lens.

At one point we did get stopped by a security patrolman who informed us that doing a photoshoot in this park without a permit was not allowed, so we moved to a spot on a bridge just outside the park to continue our shoot.

The 55mm f1.8 Zeiss was a lens that I had just picked up on this trip and I really liked how it looked shooting wide open.

It was a bit chilly that day, so we wrapped after a few more images and headed back indoors.

I'm really glad that I had the chance to work with Kayo-san after such a long time. Not only did I get to hang out with an old friend, it also gave me the chance to test out a new lens and get more practice in "Seeing the light".

Shooting Jungle Queens, Ninjas and Bikinis with the Cheetahstand Collapsible Beauty Dish

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/160@f4

My apologies for the lack of recent posts in this blog.  We've still been shooting and taking BTS notes from each shoot, but haven't had the time to organize and do the writeups on them.

Early last year I had the chance of working once again with one of my favorite teams - Luke and Jen. We started with shooting a Jungle Queen theme, which then evolved into a Ninja shoot and we finished off at sunset with swimwear on the beach. Three very different kiinds of looks in one day.

We shot in Kepaniwai Park in Iao Valley, starting at a big banyan tree in the middle of the park. This tree has lots of interesting nooks and crannies to put a model in and around.

For our first set, Jen selected an Ujena swimsuit which fit perfectly with our jungle theme.

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/125@f4

We lit this first series of images with the Cheetahstand CL360 in a QWBD White collapsible Beauty Dish.  This was boomed up overhead with a painter's extension pole modified with a Kacey adapter.

To light up the inside of the tree behind our model, a Cheetahstand V850 with a Saberstrip modifier was attached to one of the inner branches with a Justin Clamp.

The USB radio slave that connects to the V850 flash make the unit slightly too large to fit completely into the Saberstrip, but we were able to get most of it into the tube to make it work.

We started off with some simple poses, but Jen wasted no time coming up with poses that really showed off her physique.

Like this one:

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/125@f4

Working with Jen is a lot like photographing a comic book super heroine or an action figure come to life. It is simply amazing to watch her when she flexes her muscles.

You really need to see it in person - it's like she has built-in Iron Man armor under her skin.

Moving around to the other side of the tree, we shot some reclining poses. This spot did have a slight issue where we were getting dappled light on the model's body so we diffused that with a California SunSwatter.

Wanted a bit more edge light behind the model than the existing natural light was giving us so we moved the Saberstrip to a spot behind the banyan tree.

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/160@f4

One of the advantages of working with an athletic model like Jen is that you can experiment with ideas you normally wouldn't dare to try. Like climbing WAAAAAY up to the top of that tree.

Since she was so high up in the tree, we put the Cheetahstand CL360 and beauty dish back onto the painters pole and had Luke hold it as high up as he could to get the light on an even height with the model.

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/125@f4

We then headed over to the Japanese garden area of the park to do our Ninja look.

Here we experimented with shooting "day for night" - using a tungsten white balance in camera and underexposing the image to give a feeling of a moonlit night.  The flashes were gelled with MagMod CTO gels.

For these images we went with a different style of treatment in Adobe Lightroom for more of a "300" or "Ultimate Fighter" kind of look.

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/160@f4

This ninja weapon is called a kyoketsu shoge, and has a long rope with a metal ring on the end which is used to ensnare an opponent.  To simulate her actually using it in combat, the metal ring was held next to the camera as the shot was taken.  This had the added effect of creating a leading line to the subject.

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/160@f4

I've had these martial arts weapons for years and have always wanted to incorporate them into photoshoots.  Jen is one of the few models that had the physique that matched the look I wanted for these.

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/200@f4

One of the things I noticed after the shoot was that the kanji on her headband was upside down so I had to fix it in post.

Details, I gotta remember to think about the details DURING the shoot.

For sunset we headed out to Makena Cove beach.  Lucky for us there were no weddings that day, so we were able to move around the beach a lot to get different settings. We cycled through several different sets of Wicked Weasel bikinis for these beach shots.

Since the sun was still a bit high in the sky when we got there, we started out by using the California Sunbounce reflector as fill.

We also turned it around and used it to block the harsh sunlight for a softer look for some of the shots.

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 250 1/200@f4

Around sunset we switched to using the Cheetahstand CL360 in a QWBD White collapsible Beauty Dish.  I really like the portability and power of the CL360s.  I also found a way to doing hypersync with the Sony cameras so that we can exceed the flash sync speed limitation.  I'll have to remember to do a post about that.

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 400 1/160@f4

The light hitting the sand in front of the strobe made the foreground a little hot, so in the future I'll also need to remember to bring some Cinefoil next time to flag off the bottom of the beauty dish.

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/200@f4

Sony a6000 Sony 70-200mm f4 G OSS iso 100 1/160@f4

Sony a6000 Sony 18-105mm f4 G OSS iso 800 .5 sec@f5.6

It was so much fun to work with this team again. Looking forward to our next shoot!